Systems for remotely rendering three dimensional (“3D”) graphics rely on platform-specific protocols and infrastructures, such as OpenGL over X11 for Linux/Unix based platforms and Remote Desktop Protocol version 6.0 (“RDP 6.0”) for Microsoft Windows based platforms. These systems may present problems. Some software applications may only exist for a specific platform and are not available for users of different platforms. The Microsoft DirectX Graphics Application Programming Interfaces (“APIs”) are only available for Microsoft Windows based platforms. Even when the same infrastructure is available, there may exist different versions, for example DirectX 9 and DirectX 7. RDP 6.0 is a closed protocol and implementing a client for all possible platforms is cost prohibitive and impractical.
OpenGL over X11 implementations on Microsoft Windows based platforms are not native and suffer from poorer performance. Similarly, translation to OpenGL using products like VMWare Workstation or Parallels Desktop to run Microsoft Windows applications on a platform not using Microsoft Windows, either by virtualization or emulation, suffers from poorer performance.